


(take my hand) as the sun descends

by tsunderestorm



Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: Bathing/Washing, M/M, Planet Scar Syndrome | Geostigma, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:49:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25616902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsunderestorm/pseuds/tsunderestorm
Summary: Rufus looks up at him, saying, “That’s what I thought. Well, then. Bathe with me.”Tseng acquiesces, because when Rufus wants something, Rufus gets it. Because it’s been a long day, and the bandages he’s still wearing around the wound on his chest have made him sweat something awful. Because the room they’d seized for Rufus is the best one in the place and the bathroom suits it, a corner affair with a deep-set tub and a window overlooking the cliff.Because a bath with the man he loves sounds like the best possible thing right now.
Relationships: Rufus Shinra/Tseng
Comments: 13
Kudos: 72





	(take my hand) as the sun descends

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, my partner was the one who prompted me with "the two of them just having a soft moment, after something really stressful... just relaxing and taking care of each other... like hurt/comfort, but mostly the comfort".
> 
> I am of the opinion that bathing (or any grooming in general, really) is one of the highest forms of intimacy. It's cathartic, it's beautiful, and I wanted that for these two for their first time being sexually intimate since Rufus' geostigma.
> 
> Quick warning - although not enough, in my opinion, to warrant the Graphic Depictions of Violence tag, there is a brief, fairly vivid description of Tseng's torture wounds at the hands of the Remnants - if that bothers you, I'd recommend skipping the part starting at " _He knows he's looked better_ " and resuming at " _Rufus grabs up a leftover drinking cup_ ".
> 
> Take care and enjoy!

Night descends on Healen Lodge and its residents slowly, the sky a time-lapse of dripping watercolor paint. The lights in the cabins that line the cliffside beneath them slowly flicker out as the other inhabitants go to bed, blown out like candles one by one. Still, the topmost outpost remains lit. 

“I think I’ll go to bed,” Rufus says after he beats Elena and Tseng both at another round of cards. Their routine, then, smooth as a well-oiled machine, like cogs maintaining clockwork. Tseng starts a bath, as he has done most nights for the better part of two years. Despite the Turks’ alternating shifts at the former President’s bedside, it has always been Tseng who stands guard in the dark, always him who weathers Rufus through the long nights, always him who helps Rufus get ready for another night of restless sleep. It has always been _him_ given that most intimate and beloved task. 

Because he has been there the longest, because there is no one among the Turks or anywhere on the Planet in whom Rufus has more faith. Because the Lifesteam has tried to take them both, and they’re still here, alive, _together_ and that has to mean something. Right? Tseng is too learned of the world and its wonders and woes to believe in fate, especially considering that Rufus would spit in the face of it if he could… but still, the fact they are here, living on nearing numbers three and four of the nine lives Rude jokes they have must be for a reason. Without exception, it is him, because they are lovers and he’s long-past caring that his subordinates know that. It is Tseng who takes the night shift at Rufus’ bedside, always.

Always him to debride the necrotic black stain of geostigma from Rufus’ arms, trace with his fingers the path of its progress. Ichor from the fell god that was Shinra splashed first across Rufus’ chest and then down his arms, spreading slowly, creeping. Spilled ink splashed from the writer’s well on an otherwise pristine page. It has always been him who is allowed to see Rufus at his most vulnerable: a privilege, and a punishment.

Now, three weeks out from the healing rain that had bathed Midgar’s desiccated remains and the phoenix-like fledging that is Edge, Rufus is making progress. He’s defying expectations in his recovery, shocking even the physical therapist they’ve hired for his long-term care, popping less pills and discarding the stimulant he’d clung to like a lifeline. He can get into and out of his wheelchair unassisted and he can walk short distances leaning on a cane. 

Honestly, he can bathe by himself again, and keep his Turks close by only in the event he needs them. Tseng prefers, though, to stay near: for safety, he explains, in case the low tub proves a challenge for him, for protection, in the unlikely event an assassin leaps through the window of their vastly-elevated lodge to take revenge for Shinra’s misdeeds. 

For love, he means, unspoken but always known. 

He helps Elena clean up after dinner as Rufus disappears into his room, helps her rinse plates clean and scrub their cookware to gleaming before she gives him her customary too-tight squeeze and chirps a goodnight. Tseng allows himself a moment of respite in the empty kitchenette of their connected suites, listening to the hum of cicadas and the wind rustling leaves outside the cranked-open windows and listens past them for the sounds from the President’s room: shuffled steps on plush carpeting, the abrupt shut-off of the faucet, the quiet sound of water as Rufus enters his bath. He allows him a few moments of privacy, but then slips quietly through the door, choosing to come before he can be called.

Rufus is submerged almost entirely in fragrant water when Tseng reaches the bathroom, looking up at him like a frog hiding among lily pads, only visible from his eyes up. With him closer, he rises out of the water just enough to expose his mouth and, as Tseng leans down to kneel beside the tub, Rufus spits a stream of bathwater at him. It splashes the front of Tseng’s shirt, turning the white fabric sheer and dampening the bandage beneath it and for a moment, he freezes: too stunned to do anything but watch the damp spot on his shirt spread rapidly. Rufus breaks the silence by laughing: a rich, full-bodied sound that spills out his pretty mouth. 

How, at thirty-two years old, is Rufus still such a _brat_? Tseng shakes his head as a scolding, but the corners of his lips are turning up against his wishes. Rufus never lost hope, never surrendered to the darkness encroaching on him with every day that geostigma choked the world, but this… this is an improvement, still, even on top of the spark of hope he’d always kept lit.

“I wish you could see your face right now, Tseng,” Rufus says, nearly choking on his own laughter as he scoots back to sit against the edge of the tub nearest Tseng. He tips his head back to look up at him, angelic and innocent, lashes damp and glittering with drops of water. 

“Hello, sir,” Tseng says dryly, tucking a loose strand of hair behind his ear. The air feels sticky tonight, warm and wet even as high in the mountainous area as they are, desert warmth creeping into the lush forest that covers the hill the lodge calls home. Even he’s uncharacteristically devoid of his gloves and jacket, casual in the portion of the lodge that is theirs. 

“Come in,” Rufus murmurs invitingly as Tseng pulls his hair up, piling it on top of his head in a messy bun and securing it with a band he’d pulled from his wrist. A few strands fall down loose again, dancing over his shoulders and against the back of his heated neck, but it’s preferable to the oppressive feel of heat-warmed hair against his skin.

Rufus reaches to tug at a loose piece framing Tseng’s face, twining it around his finger and whining, “Come _in_. I want you closer.”

Tseng pauses, trying to parse what he’s heard. Over the course of his disease, Rufus had never invited him into the bath, not at first when his geostigma was only a splotch of black here and there like mold on fabric, not when the water turned gray and then black with the infected skin flaking off, not when he could barely stand to let Tseng see anything below his neck when he crouched in the water. The baths they had once loved to take together were a thing of the past, evanescent in the wake of Meteor and the scars it gouged into Gaia. 

Tseng tilts his head, confused. “That’s not necessary, sir,” he explains. “I’ll take a shower later.” He rolls his sleeves to the elbow and reaches for the piece of solid shampoo sitting in its dish on the bath’s ledge. The bar smells of lemongrass and mint; sharp, clear, alert, perfuming the room in a scent as bright as the promise of the future. 

Rufus catches Tseng’s wrist in his grip, and Tseng slowly, carefully raises his eyes to meet icy blue, letting the shampoo bar he’d collected fall with a clatter back into its scummy dish. “Sir,” he acknowledges, quietly. “What is it?” 

“Don’t be naive. Has something changed?” Rufus demands, eyes narrowed, annoyed.

Yes. No? Yes, yes… something has. Everything has changed. Rufus had always seemed infallible, untouchable. But then, the blast from Weapon had injured him, broken his bones and geostigma had nearly ended him. Tseng has always felt his own mortality thick as tar at the back of his throat, a bad taste in his mouth that bites and burns, but now it’s choking him.

“No, sir,” Tseng says. A half-truth. 

Rufus looks up at him, saying, “That’s what I thought. Well, then. Bathe with me.”

Tseng acquiesces, because when Rufus wants something, Rufus gets it. Because it’s been a long day, and the bandages he’s still wearing around the wound on his chest have made him sweat something awful. Because the room they’d seized for Rufus is the best one in the place and the bathroom suits it, a corner affair with a deep-set tub and a window overlooking the cliff. 

Because a bath with the man he loves sounds like the best possible thing right now. 

“Yes, sir,” he sighs. It takes Tseng little time to strip, letting his clothes fall in a haphazard pile atop what Rufus had shed. Character development, perhaps, growth from a time when Rufus would tease him for draping his clothes half-folded over the back of a chair: shirt, slacks, even his socks and underwear neat and polished even when undressing. The bandage is last, filthy with bits of dried blood and off-color fluid when he unwinds it from his chest. It’s merely a precaution at this point; the wound has started to pull tight in healing. Completely nude, he steps into the bath and sighs happily at the temperature - Rufus likes it warm enough to soothe, to uncoil the tension from abused muscles, but not hot enough to dry out his skin - and the vapors wafting off the surface of the bath. Yarrow and chamomile, the special blend that Rufus favors when he’s tense and sore. 

“Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?” Rufus asks when Tseng is knelt in the wide, low tub opposite him. “I’ve known you long enough to know when something is. No lies.”

After a careful moment of consideration, Tseng says, “You almost died. Several times.”

“Yes,” Rufus says, surprisingly humble. 

“I could do nothing,” Tseng says. _Another failure_. A failure like all of the coworkers that he’s had to bid farewell to, all of the family he’s had to bury. A failure like Zack, gunned down in the desert. A failure like Aerith, impaled on the same sword that had almost killed him. 

Rufus handwaves him, asks, “What were you planning to do, single-handedly fight an entire disease?”

He doesn’t take it seriously enough, never has. Tseng kneels, hands on his knees and head bowed in supplication. “It was… unbearable. To think that you might be lost because I could do nothing.”

Rufus slaps his hand to the surface of the bathwater, sending soap suds fluttering up like pollen in the wind. They stick to Tseng’s hair like spiderwebs, and he says only, “Sir.”

“Stop that,” Rufus says, leaning forward, ducking his head so Tseng is forced to look at him. “I’m not ‘sir’ right now; we’re alone. Now, let me wash your hair.” 

There’s no arguing with him. Reluctantly, Tseng turns so that his back is to Rufus, leaning forward to rest his arms against his knees. Rufus’ fingers find the tie and pull it out, sending the messy bun he’d worn it in to combat the heat tumbling down. 

“Yes, Rufus,” Tseng murmurs, reluctantly. He knows he’s looked better. The shallow cuts the remnants had made between his broken ribs have healed, leaving only the deeper wounds: the raw spot where they’d decided to flay skin before getting bored with his lack of reaction, the twin punctures and the lightning-burned wasteland between them from Loz’s bizarre weapon. Rufus’ fingers linger just a moment too long on the puffy mass of scar tissue on Tseng’s back, Masamune’s kiss of death, an entry wound that should have killed him along with its pair on his chest. 

“You’re healing nicely,” Rufus says, sparing Tseng any pity that he knows the man doesn’t want. “Such a handsome body.”

Rufus wets Tseng’s hair with cupped hands full of fragrant water before lathering up the shampoo bar in his hands, working up a rich amount of lemongrass-scented suds that he works into Tseng’s hair. He scrubs down against his scalp, fingernails dragging along it, taking his time and relishing in it. He’s always loved Tseng’s hair and he’s never let that be a secret. It’s long, pretty, cascading over his fingertips like a silken waterfall, curling around his fingers like loose threads from a beloved comfort blanket. Tseng moans quietly, relief and pleasure, and Rufus considers it a triumph.

He’s gentler, though, near the remainder of the stitches near Tseng‘s forehead, a reminder of where it felt like the remnants had nearly peeled his skin back from his skull after the tall, freakish one had pistol-whipped him so hard he’d spat blood. For Rufus’ delicacy, Tseng is grateful. He loves when Rufus washes his hair: gentle, skillful fingers, the low hum of appreciation Rufus offers as he works, the way that, in the right mood, he’ll tug it _just so_ because, as he knows, pulling on Tseng’s hair is a straight-shot of pleasure down his spine. 

Rufus grabs up a leftover drinking cup and fills it with water the second time around, up-ending it over Tseng’s head to let the water wash the suds away. He’s more precise with the conditioner, combing it through Tseng’s long hair with careful fingers, leaning forward only when the ends are generously coated in it to rest his chin on Tseng’s scarred shoulder. The conditioner smells of plum blossoms and milk, creamy and comforting as it sinks in and hydrates the heat-frizzed strands.

“I don’t need this,” Tseng protests, although he loves it. He relaxes back just a bit against Rufus, shifting his posture so he can feel Rufus’ chest against his back, but not so he’s forcing Rufus to bear weight he isn’t sure he can take yet. 

“You do,” Rufus refutes, hands coming to Tseng’s shoulders and digging his thumbs into tense trapezius muscles and then adds with a kiss to Tseng’s warm, wet neck, “as do I.” 

When Tseng’s hair is washed, conditioned, and rinsed Rufus braids it into one simple, loose two-strand plait that he drapes over the man’s shoulder, easier to keep it out of his way. Tseng always sleeps with it braided, for ease and necessity, and in the morning he’ll wake up with his hair just wavy enough for Rufus to comb it straight with his fingers.

Tseng is grateful when Rufus taps his shoulder and shifts, turning around so he’s leaning against the edge of the tub so Tseng can slot up behind him. Tseng kisses the nape of Rufus’ neck as he leans forward, plucking up a different shampoo bar than Rufus had used on him and working a purple-hued, rich and fragrant lavender shampoo into Rufus’ hair. 

“Mm, Tseng,” Rufus mumbles, blissful under Tseng’s skilled hands massaging his scalp. He leans back against him, a weight Tseng gladly takes. “Your hands… gods, your hands.”

Tseng “hmms” an acknowledgement - he knows full well Rufus’ love affair with his hands, whether they’re taking pleasure in his business or in the business of pleasure, lethal or loving. Shampoo rinsed, he brushes the creamy conditioner through Rufus’ platinum strands, and when that too rinses into the water Rufus turns to face him again. Learning forward, he reaches behind Tseng until he can turn the faucet on once again, flooding the bath with a renewed rush of warmth. 

It is a wonderful thing, Tseng thinks, to see Rufus move unassisted. To see the water around him remain clear except for the sheen of soap run-off, to know that Rufus hasn’t shot up any stimulant in weeks. To see him healthy, and whole, free of the wasting disease that had plagued him and half the planet for two years. 

Rufus leans in, watching Tseng’s face - always searching for imperfections in the mask, dents in the armor - those pieces he can work his clever fingers into and pull, uncover, dismantle. He’s always been this way, unmaking his favorite Turk to see what he makes of himself in the aftermath. Tseng reaches up, pushing Rufus’ hair back from his face, tucking the damp strands behind his ear. A smile creeps across his lips.

“You’re still touching me like you think I’ll break,” Rufus scolds, and Tseng is ashamed to admit that he’s right. How can he treat him as anything but fine porcelain? He supposes it’s part of the job, an unfortunate side effect of Rufus’ brushes with death, to infantilize him so.

“I’m sorry, Rufus,” Tseng says, trailing his fingers down Rufus’ temple. “It will take some time, I think.”

Rufus tips his head back once more and laughs, musical. Tseng watches the fine curvature of his neck, the way the laugh bubbles up, blissfully _alive_. No weakness, no struggle to breathe.

Quieted, Rufus asks, “An excuse? From _my_ Tseng?” 

Tseng’s cheeks heat. It’s half-embarrassment at the realization that he had, in fact, just offered an excuse and half warm flutter of love. It’s been years, _decades_ of him being Rufus’, but to hear the “ _my_ ” makes his heart leap into his throat. 

“My apologies sir,” he says, deferring once again to the title rather than the name, and he’s rewarded with an impatient tap of Rufus’ fingers on his cheek, not quite but _almost_ a slap. “... Rufus.”

“I don’t mind how long it takes,” Rufus says, sitting back against the edge of the bath, his legs spreading to accommodate Tseng shifting to sit between them. “Seeing as you’ll be around for some time, now. After all, I gave you a chance to retire and you refused. I’m afraid I won’t be giving it again.”

They had all refused. Tseng would refuse one hundred times over. 

Tseng kisses him, then. Unrestrained, untempered, fingers beneath Rufus’ chin to tilt it upwards, tongue slipping past his lips even before Rufus invites it. It’s one of the only selfish things he’s done in two years: kiss him like he wants to, like he needs to. Allow himself to feel it. Rufus moans into his mouth and Tseng drinks it in, treasures it, sucks in another and another as Rufus gives them up, soft gasps of breath that Tseng pulls into his lungs.

“I want you,” Tseng says, mouthing at Rufus’ cheek when they’re too breathless to do anything but pull back, adding with a hand beneath the water to curl around Rufus’ growing erection, “and you want me, _Rufus._ ” 

Tseng’s thighs bracket Rufus’ frail ones and he finds himself shifting his weight so it’s more on his knees and less on Rufus. Rufus responds with hands on his hips, tugging him closer, needing him near, damn the consequences. Tseng’s hands move to Rufus’ shoulders, maintaining some distance, balancing his weight with precision as he raises up enough to clear the water, reaching for the massage oil on the window sill that he’s used on Rufus’ muscles. It’s not ideal, but the idea of being away from him even long enough to find some proper lube is horrific, and well… any port in a storm. He’s sure worse things have been used in less dire situations.

His fingers reach behind him slick with oil, experienced and easy, circling his rim with the pad of one before dipping it inside. Normally he’d take more time, tease himself, but there is a desperation in his movements, a frenetic buzzing in the air that he can’t ignore that tells him to _get it done_. He’s got two fingers in, scissoring them slowly, when he feels Rufus’ fingers encircle his wrist, guiding the angle of his hand, pushing the fingers he has crooked inside just _so_. Tseng blinks at him, bleary, clearing the stars from his eyes and Rufus just shrugs, offering as an explanation, “You look cute when you’re caught off-guard.”

He keeps his grip, though, rubs his thumb over Tseng’s wrist, trailing the veins along his forearm as he stretches himself. When Tseng adds a third slick finger to the others, Rufus’ fingers follow to press where Tseng’s body is swallowing what it’s offered is the best kind of promise.

“Let me have you,” Rufus says, impatient. There is the slightest note of a whine in his tone, the briefest hitch in his breath. It’s _cute_ , the needy way he’s almost begging for it, a rush that sucks the air from Tseng’s lungs. Pulling Tseng against him and bumping his cock against the inside of Tseng’s thigh, he demands, “Inside.”

“Like this, for now, sir,” Tseng breathes, lowering himself back into the water and dipping a hand beneath the surface to take Rufus’ cock in his hand, guiding the head to his hole. The water probably does away with half of the oil he slicks onto Rufus’ cock and he could already use more lubrication, honestly, just a little more prep, but at this point he’s so hungry for Rufus that he’d take him dry just to commit the feel of him to memory again. It’s been too long, two years of no sex and months with barely a handjob to relieve the tension. Nothing can stop them, now.

Rufus watches Tseng as he lowers himself onto his cock, watches the way his pouting lips part just so, the way he squeezes his eyes tight shut as he’s stretched on it. There’s a slow exhale, a blissful sigh of his name as he takes it to the base inside of his so _very_ capable body. Rufus has seen Tseng full of his cock more times than he could possibly even count, has been full of Tseng’s probably more still, and nothing compares to the first few moments. 

Yes, yes, _yes_. Rufus focuses entirely on not coming, the squeeze of Tseng’s body so _much_ after years without and the overwhelming feeling of _home_ shaking him to his core. It’s an earthquake shattering the very foundations of self control, a tidal wave pulling at the stilts of a home to send it crashing down. He doesn’t speak, but he puts everything into his touches, hands coming to rest easy on Tseng's hips, thumbs digging in to hold him tight. He’ll leave half-moons in the olive skin and kiss them better later.

Adjusted to the stretch, Tseng sets a rhythm, hands moving from Rufus’ shoulders to the rim of the tub for a better grasp, rising and falling, taking Rufus’ cock in deep with every rock of his hips only to raise up again, just _enough_ that Rufus feels the head of his cock kiss Tseng’s rim before his body swallows him up again. Rufus won’t take his eyes off him. He’s beautiful, always: when he’s working, signing papers and the furrow between his brows is an imperfection Rufus wants to kiss; when he’s killing, covered in blood and sweat and tears; when he’s fucking, something ethereal and unbelievable. There’s sweat beading on his skin and bathwater dripping in rivulets alongside it, tracing paths Rufus knows, paths he wants to re-learn. There’s a mole on Tseng’s left shoulder, a bruise on his right bicep. There are new scars and old ones alike, everything melding together to form a new picture of Tseng: a survivor, just like him.

Rufus sucks kisses into Tseng’s throat, murmuring promises into the skin as his hands twine around him, thumbs at the v of his hips, fingers pressing to the dimples just above his ass and tugging him closer still. Tseng teeters off-balance, falling against him, and when he looks down at Rufus to make sure he’s okay, that he isn’t in pain with the sudden weight on his sore muscles, he’s met with a triumphant grin on Rufus’ unfairly handsome face.

“I told you, I’m not made of glass,” Rufus smirks, hands sliding up Tseng’s back, wet and slick with oil until his fingers are combing through the damp strands of Tseng’s hair that have fallen free from the loose braid. “I caught you with no struggle.”

Rufus knows that’s all the initiative that Tseng needs. A silent understanding ripples between them, something hot and electric in the air that makes Tseng shudder. He clasps Rufus’ face between his hands, pressing a kiss between his brows before his hands return to Rufus’ shoulders, letting Rufus hold him as he moves.

“So you did, _ah_ , Rufus,” Tseng pants as Rufus snaps his hips up. The movement takes more effort than Rufus wants to admit, effort that Rufus puts his all into hiding, and if Tseng sees through the facade, he has the decency to not say anything. He only gasps at the feel of him pressed deep inside and praises, “You’re made of stronger stuff than that, lover.”

Tseng leans forward, responding with a throaty laugh to Rufus nosing at his nipple when offered, sucking the perfumed bathwater as it drips from his damp hair down his smooth chest before rolling the nipple on his tongue. Rufus spares a hand guiding the roll of Tseng’s hips to curl instead around his cock, offering a tight squeeze that makes Tseng moan, forehead pressed to Rufus’ and eyes shut tight. Rufus slides his closed in tandem, hands loose on Tseng’s hips, along for the ride.

“You’re beautiful,” Rufus exhales, head bowed to rest on Tseng’s chest. Tseng says nothing, only tucks Rufus’ damp hair back behind his ear and tilts his head up, kisses him slower, deeper, softer than he had to start this. They’re past the point of urgency, now, fallen into something less like the reckless abandon lust of before and more a quiet need. Tseng rides him slow and steady, practiced ease guiding his rise and fall, the ebb and flow as he lets Rufus’ cock fuck him deep. 

Tseng comes first, but just barely - nothing but a stunted stutter of his hips and a moan he kisses into Rufus’ mouth outwardly betraying his orgasm. He clenches down vice-tight around Rufus and Rufus follows with a shuddered cry, flooding his insides. Filling him up, making him his. Two years, he thinks. Two, gods-damned years.

For a moment, there is only the whir of the slow-turning ceiling fan, the hum of the dim electric light, and their breathing: heavy, exertion-quick, then steadier. Tseng checks Rufus’ heart rate at his fluttering pulse point with practiced fingers, just to be safe, and Rufus pouts.

“I missed you,” Rufus says, resting his cheek against Tseng’s damp chest, unbothered by the rapid rise and fall. “And before you say, ‘I’ve always been right here’, I _know_ that you understand what I mean.”

Tseng laughs, kissing the top of Rufus’ head. “You missed, _ah-_ “ he asks, tightening his body to clench around Rufus’ cock with an arch of his brow. “ _this_ , sir?” 

Rufus pinches Tseng’s ass, making him jump, his hole clenching tight again around his softening cock. It’s a pleasant sensation, one that makes him wish he had the energy to go again, take Tseng to bed and get his handsome, muscular legs over his shoulders to plow him the way he used to, or maybe get Tseng’s cock inside of him, fill him up while he fucks his cock into the tight, perfect channel of his fist. 

“Yes,” Rufus says, “I missed fucking you. I miss you fucking me. I miss seeing the face you make when you come. It’s one of your best… cuter than you know, in all honesty.”

Tseng sighs, rising up out of the water, sparing only the softest of sounds as Rufus’ dick slips out of him before he’s climbing out of the tub to wrap a towel around his waist. He shifts, feeling Rufus’ cum dribble out of his slack hole, allowing himself a moment to relish in it before he’s holding a towel out for Rufus, who has moved so he’s peering over the edge of the tub, chin on his hands and a familiar, ambitious gleam in his eye.

“Out, _sir_ ,” Tseng insists, adding on the title as a jab, a tease. “The water’s ruined, Rufus….”

Rufus looks at a strand of come floating on the surface of the bathwater with a displeased wrinkle of his nose. He rises, taking the towel when offered and wrapping it around his slim hips. He stumbles when he steps out of the bath, and although Tseng fidgets to help, he lets Rufus catch himself. Grudgingly, with his brow furrowed, Rufus reaches for his cane. His legs are jelly from sitting in the same position for too long, from bearing even the slight amount of weight Tseng had allowed him to take as he’d ridden, from a too-recent orgasm that wrung what little energy he had out of him.

“I won’t need this forever,” he says, a tone of finality. Rufus does not need to see the future; he creates it. 

“Perhaps not, Rufus,” Tseng nods, leaning in to kiss him as he leans on the cane, tightening the towel’s tie low on Rufus’ hips, pausing to let his fingers linger on Rufus’ fingers atop the cane’s grip as he pulls his hand away. Pianist fingers, gunman’s fingers, healthy and devoid of any lingering traces of geostigma. “But if you do, know that I think it makes you look distinguished.”

Tseng runs his fingers over Rufus’ elegant hand, up his arm to move over his hip, ghosting low across his belly. 

“Tseng,” Rufus teases, cheeky. “If you wanted another round, you should have just told me.”

With a shake of his head, Tseng cautions, “No, sir,” and steps aside to let Rufus leave the bathroom, padding across the lush carpet to the suite’s armoire. He throws open the heavy wooden doors to thumb through some stacks of neatly folded pajamas, selecting the baby blue silk - a bit of luxury, celebratory for a night like tonight. Tseng tugs on some loose, grey cotton pants and climbs into bed beside Rufus when he’s dressed, pulls his silky smooth lover into his arms and settles in for the night.

“I can’t wait to tell my physical therapist that we finally fucked again,” Rufus muses as he tucks his head into the crook of Tseng’s neck, letting the man’s arms envelop him. “She’ll be so pleased.”

“ _Goodnight_ , Rufus.” Tseng sighs, but when Rufus looks up for one last glance at his lover’s sleepy face to ferry him across the river to his own dreams, there’s a smile there.

**Author's Note:**

> I am [tsunderestorm](twitter.com/tsunderestorm) on twitter! ★


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